Latest AI News
Controversy, Capital, Caution: Day 3 of IndiaAI Summit Packs High Drama and Big Deals
Day 3 of the IndiaAI Impact Summit saw Galgotias controversy, Sarvam AI launches and billion-dollar announcements from global technology giants.
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OpenAI Announces Collaboration With IITs, IIMs and More Institutes at AI Impact Summit
AI Impact Summit 2026 was kicked off by the government on February 16. The event has brought together AI firms from across the world in one place, along with government representatives, industry leaders, subject-matter experts, and executives. As part of the AI Impact Expo 2026, which began on February 16, several companies and universities have showcased innovations and products. On the third day of the summit, Sam Altman-led AI giant has announced that it is collaborating with multiple higher education institutions in India to extend help and guidance to students.
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Indian AI lab Sarvam’s new models are a major bet on the viability of open-source AI
Indian AI labSarvamon Tuesday unveiled a new generation of large language models, as it bets that smaller, efficient open-source AI models will be able to grab some market share away from more expensive systems offered by its much larger U.S. and Chinese rivals. The launch, announced at theIndia AI Impact Summitin New Delhi, aligns with New Delhi’spush to reduce reliance on foreign AI platformsand tailor models to local languages and use cases. Sarvam said the new lineup includes 30-billion and 105-billion parameter models; a text-to-speech model; a speech-to-text model; and a vision model to parse documents. These mark a sharp upgrade from the company’s 2-billion-parameter Sarvam 1 model that it released in October 2024. The 30-billion- and 105-billion-parameter models use a mixture-of-experts architecture, which activates only a fraction of their total parameters at a time, significantly reducing computing costs, Sarvam said. The 30B model supports a 32,000-token context window aimed at real-time conversational use, while the larger model offers a 128,000-token window for more complex, multi-step reasoning tasks. Sarvam said the new AI models were trained from scratch rather than fine-tuned on existing open-source systems. The 30B model was pre-trained on about 16 trillion tokens of text, while the 105B model was trained on trillions of tokens spanning multiple Indian languages, it said. The models are designed to support real-time applications, the startup said, including voice-based assistants and chat systems in Indian languages. The startup said the models were trained using computing resources provided under India’s government-backed IndiaAI Mission, with infrastructure support from data center operator Yotta and technical support from Nvidia. Sarvam executives said the company plans to take a measured approach to scaling its models, focusing on real-world applications rather than raw size. “We want to be mindful in how we do the scaling,” Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar said at the launch. “We don’t want to do the scaling mindlessly. We want to understand the tasks which really matter at scale and go and build for them.” Sarvam said it plans to open-source the 30B and 105B models, though it did not specify whether the training data or full training code would also be made public. The company also outlined plans to build specialized AI systems, including coding-focused models and enterprise tools under a product it calls Sarvam for Work, and a conversational AI agent platform called Samvaad. Founded in 2023, Sarvam has raised more than $50 million in funding andcountsLightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) among its investors.
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India’s Sarvam wants to bring its AI models to feature phones, cars and smart glasses
Indian AI company Sarvam plans to bring itsnewly released AI modelsto users by deploying them on Nokia feature phones, cars and its own smart glasses. The company,backed by the likes of Lightspeed, PeakXV, and Khosla Ventures, said at the ongoing India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi that it is using edge models that take up only megabytes of space, can run on most phones with existing processors, and can work offline. The company is teaming up with HMD to bring a conversational AI assistant to Nokia and HMD phones. A video demo showed a user clicking a dedicated AI button on a feature phone to converse with an AI assistant in a local language to get guidance on government schemes or local markets. It is not clear if all the AI features showcased at the event will work offline. “Through edge AI, we want to bring intelligence to every phone, laptop, car, and even a new generation of devices,” Tushar Goswamy, head of Edge AI at Sarvam, said during a presentation. He said that the company has worked with Qualcomm to tune its models for the latter’s chipsets. Sarvam didn’t provide details on which devices the models will be deployed to. Qualcomm said that it is developing a “Sovereign AI Experience Suite” that would work across a range of devices, including phones, PCs, laptops, cars, and IoT devices. “Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies can accelerate how we take sovereign AI from research to deployment,” Sarvam co-founder and CEO Vivek Raghwan said in a statement. “This will allow Sarvam to design models and applications that run closer to the edge, safeguard data, and are ready for adoption, at scale.” Sarvam also said it is working with German engineering giant Bosch to bring AI assistants to cars, though it didn’t disclose many other details. The startup also showed off a pair of AI smart-glasses, dubbed Sarvam Kaze, designed and manufactured in India. The company’s co-founder, Pratyush Kumar, said the glasses are a “builders’ device” and will be available in May. Sarvam has so far operated largely in the enterprise market, offering its voice-focused models for use cases like customer support. The new models and partnerships indicate the company is shifting its focus towards consumer use cases.
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World Labs lands $200M from Autodesk to bring world models into 3D workflows
Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs has secured a $200 million investment from software design giant Autodesk. The partnership will see the two companies collaborating to explore how World Labs’ models — AI systems that can generate and reason about immersive 3D environments — can work alongside Autodesk’s tools, and vice versa, starting with a focus on entertainment use cases. The deal is part of a larger round for World Labs, according to Autodesk, which declined to disclose further details. World Labs, which emerged fromstealth in 2024 with $230 millionat a $1 billion valuation, isreportedlynow in talks to raise capital at a $5 billion valuation. World Labs did not immediately return a request for more details. For World Labs, Autodesk’s investment is a signal that its product has commercial appeal. The startup’s first world model product,Marble, released last November, lets users create editable, downloadable 3D environments. Autodesk is one of the biggest developers of 3D CAD (computer-aided design) software. Its platform underpins architectural, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and entertainment workflows. That focus on the built world makes investment in advanced spatial AI a natural extension of its core business. Or as Li put it in a statement: “Autodesk has long helped people think spatially and solve real-world problems and, together, we share a clear purpose: building physical AI that augments human creativity and puts more powerful tools in the hands of designers, builders, and creators.” As part of the deal, Autodesk will serve as an advisor to World Labs, and the two will collaborate at the “research and model level.” Daron Green, Autodesk’s chief scientist, told TechCrunch the partnership is still in its early days, so the precise form it’s going to take hasn’t been determined yet. “You could anticipate us consuming their models or them consuming our models in different settings,” Green said. He mused that customers might like to start with a world-model-based sketch in World Labs (say, of an office layout) and then drill down on certain design aspects (like the design of the desk), which is where Autodesk’s tech might come in. “Similarly, you might want to take an object that you’ve designed in our [platform], and put it in a context that you create through one of [World Labs’s] prompts,” Green said. Green added that data sharing is not part of the agreement. Green said the two companies plan to start with media and entertainment use cases. Most companies building world models — includingGoogle DeepMindandRunway— see gaming and interactive entertainment as an initial go-to-market strategy. Autodesk already works with most major media production companies and has been training models for character animation. “These are close to world models,” Green said. “They’re a characterization of an animal in the world that’s responding to physical constraints like time, maybe a terrain it needs to traverse. So there’s a physical understanding in the model, and you can see how that might be combined [with World Labs’s tech]. You’re not just animating the dog, but you’re giving it a world within which it can now interact.” The partnership with World Labs supports Autodesk’s broader push to integrate more AI features across its software portfolio. The company is developing“neural CAD,”a new kind of generative AI model trained on geometric data that can reason about components and entire systems. Put simply, it can generate working 3D models, not just images, with an understanding of how those designs would function in the real world. Autodesk’s neural CAD models are already being integrated into the firm’s product design and architecture products as a step toward more advanced spatial intelligence. But World Labs’ models could help extend that capability beyond individual design files toward more holistic digital representations of the physical world. Green thinks different AI systems, including large language models, world models and neural CAD, will be combined in the future to improve designs for Autodesk’s customers. “If AI is to be truly useful, it must understand worlds, not just words,” Li said in the statement. “Worlds are governed by geometry, physics, and dynamics, and reconciling the semantic, spatial, and physical is the next great frontier of AI.”
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OpenAI pushes into higher education as India seeks to scale AI skills
OpenAI is expanding its footprint in India and moving into the country’s higher-education system through partnerships with leading academic institutions. The move comes as the South Asian nation seeks to scale AI skills and build domestic capacity in one of the world’s largest talent markets. On Wednesday, OpenAI said it was partnering with six public and private higher-education institutions in India, including top engineering, management, medical, and design-focused institutes, with the aim of reaching more than 100,000 students, faculty, and staff over the next year. Rather than focusing on consumer use, the initiative centers on integrating AI into core academic functions, signalling OpenAI’s interest in influencing how AI is taught, governed, and normalized within one of the world’s largest higher-education systems. OpenAI has already built a large consumer audience for its ChatGPT chatbot, which has over100 million monthly active usersin India, according to CEO Sam Altman, and India has emerged as the company’s second-largest user base after the U.S. The announcement also coincides with a broader push by leading AI firms to deepen their presence in India, which is hosting anAI Impact Summitin New Delhi this week. The first cohort of partners includes some of India’s most influential academic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi, alongside private universities and specialised design schools. The ChatGPT maker said the partnerships would span disciplines ranging from engineering and management to healthcare and creative fields. India has already emerged as a key testing ground for AI use in education. Last month, Google said India accounts for thehighest global usage of its Gemini tools for learning. Microsoft, similarly, said this week it wouldexpand its Elevate skilling programin India to train teachers across schools, vocational institutes, and higher-education settings, working with government agencies as part of a broader push to build AI skills at scale. OpenAI said the partnerships would involve campus-wide access to its ChatGPT Edu tools, faculty training, and responsible-use frameworks. The focus, the company said, is on embedding AI into core academic workflows such as coding, research, analytics, and case analysis, rather than offering standalone access to tools. Two of the partner institutions, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, will also introduce OpenAI-backed certifications. Additionally, OpenAI said it would work with Indian ed-tech platforms, including PhysicsWallah, upGrad, and HCL GUVI, to extend AI training beyond campuses. These platforms will launch structured courses on AI fundamentals and ChatGPT use cases, aimed at students and early-career professionals. Raghav Gupta, head of education at OpenAI India, said educational institutions were a “critical route” to closing the gap between rapidly advancing AI tools and how people are actually using them, as skills demands shift across the economy. Last year, OpenAI hired Gupta, a former Coursera Asia-Pacific managing director, as its India and Asia-Pacific head of education, alongside the launch of a Learning Accelerator programme focused on expanding AI skills. The flurry of moves into education underscores how AI companies are increasingly looking beyond consumer tools and corporate clients toward institutions that shape skills, norms, and long-term adoption. For countries like India, the contest is not just around access to AI, but also about who helps define how it is taught, governed, and embedded at scale.
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Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers’ confidential emails to Copilot AI
Microsoft has confirmed that a bug allowed its Copilot AI to summarize customers’ confidential emails for weeks without permission. The bug, first reported byBleeping Computer, allowed Copilot Chat to read and outline the contents of emails since January, even if customers had data loss prevention policies to prevent ingesting their sensitive information into Microsoft’s large language model. Copilot Chat allows paying Microsoft 365 customers to use the AI-powered chat feature in its Office software products, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft said the bug, trackable by admins asCW1226324, means that draft and sent email messages “with a confidential label applied are being incorrectly processed by Microsoft 365 Copilot chat.” The tech giant said it began rolling out a fix for the bug earlier in February. A spokesperson for Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment, including a question about how many customers are affected by the bug. Earlier this week, the European Parliament’s IT departmenttold lawmakersthat it blocked the built-in AI features on their work-issued devices, citing concerns that the AI tools could upload potentially confidential correspondence to the cloud.
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BharatGen, Amrita Institutions Partner to Build Sovereign AI for Healthcare
The collaboration will focus on building India-centric medical foundation models, domain-specific AI frameworks for electronic medical records, and speech-first multimodal systems.
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Sarvam AI Launches Vikram, India’s Answer to ChatGPT
Sarvam AI unveiled two multilingual models at the India AI Impact Summit, marking a major step in India’s home-grown AI ambitions.
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Founder Thanks Hacker News for Helping Save 33,000 Lives
Watsi was incubated as Y-Combinator’s first-ever non-profit startup when Paul Graham spotted a post by its founder on HackerNews in 2013.
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Simplismart Expands Optimised AI Inference Platform for Cloud Providers
It operates as an abstraction and orchestration layer on top of this infrastructure, helping customers manage the complexity of building, tuning, and optimising pipelines.
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ElevenLabs Expands Impact Programme to India, Launches Professors Initiative at IIT Delhi
The ElevenLabs Impact Programme, which already supports more than 450 nonprofits across 38 countries, provides free access to the company’s voice tools.
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